Wednesday, May 25, 2016

It's Not Me, It's The WaPo Saying It

After early promises to be the most transparent administration in
history, this has been one of the most secretive. And in certain ways,
one of the most elusive. It’s also been one of the most punitive toward
whistleblowers and leakers who want to bring light to wrongdoing they
have observed from inside powerful institutions...

Remarkably, Post news reporters haven’t been
able to interview the president since late 2009. Think about that. The
Post is, after all, perhaps the leading news outlet on national
government and politics, with no in-depth, on-the-record access to the
president of the United States for almost all of his two terms.

I
couldn’t get anyone in the White House press office to address this,
despite repeated attempts by phone and email — which possibly proves my
point.

But a thorough study from Martha Joynt Kumar,
a retired Towson University professor, describes the administration’s
strategy. The president does plenty of interviews, she writes — far more
than any other president in recent history. But these interviews are
tightly controlled and targeted toward specific topics, and, it seems to
me, often granted to soft questioners. (All of this is a major shift
from a time when news conferences and short question-and-answer sessions
allowed reporters to pursue news topics aggressively and in real time.)

More interviews, less accountability. Feet kept safe from the fire.

I can't imagine why they'd be surprised, given everything he kept secret throughout his campaign (and still does to this day).